


Penny for Your Complaints

by Tinygayscully



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Fluff, article au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 06:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5575023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinygayscully/pseuds/Tinygayscully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate universe where The Doctor is simply John Smith, a cranky man who writes articles for a local newspaper for a living, and Clara is the peppy school teacher who is the only person he can't find anything wrong with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Penny for Your Complaints

At wise old age of twenty-two John Smith decided that Liverpool college had taught him everything it could and unceremoniously told his teachers he would not be coming back, in particular he told his creative writing teacher that he hoped that the man would find another passion in his tiny heart, one that wasn’t complete destroying the dreams of young writing students. 

At the slightly wiser and older age of twenty two and half John Smith had not only run out of money, but also had yet to complete the Next Great British Novel (that was the actual title, and it was not up for debate). Refusing to move back in with his parents, and refusing to listen to his eviction notice (he told his landlord point blank to stop ‘wasting his time’ and ‘move out of the way you short man’). Which was how he found himself in front of the editor of Blackpool Weekly with twenty seconds until security escorted him out. 

The office was pristine, the editor was traditional, John was everything but. He slammed his hands on the neat desk, knocking over a picture of the editor’s wife and looked his new boss dead in the, “Give me an article.”

The editor gave him a steely look in return, “why should I?” 

Ten seconds till security, “because you need a fresh face, this city needs a fresh paper.” 8 seconds. “I’m here and I want it.” 6 seconds. “Because you know that I’ll work for it.” 

“Do you have any references?” four seconds. 

“Words of people who I’ve spent months ass kissing? No, I don’t have those, I have my word.”

Three seconds. He could see the security, one of them had a Taser. John had never been tased before, except that one time in London but that was a foreplay thing.  
The editor raised her hand at the security and shrugged her shoulders, “You have four articles.”

“Eight?” John asked, the editor raised an eyebrow with nothing short of an exasperated look and John shook his head, “no, four is fine, four is perfect.”

And so the weekly column ‘Everything in this dismal town is terrible and you need to fix it right Now’ was born, and there it sat, sandwiched between Aunt Rose’s advice column and Ned’s ‘Faith in Humanity Restored’ column. And there it sat for the next thirty five years. The article was the bane of the small riverside town, both an embarrassment and wildly popular. Much like your cranky alcoholic grandfather. It really gained it’s infamous reputation when the editor green lighted a two thousand word article on why jelly babies were the best candy and any other opinion was Wrong and Bad. People mumbled and grumbled about it, but what could they do other then send a letter stating that ‘maybe jelly babies weren’t all that good and Swedish fish were better.’  
It wasn’t like you could write a letter and be done with it either, John was a stubborn Scottish man who despised all things British and that included being polite when you really loathed a person. He would take your letter, publish it and respond to it. Most people backed down after that, the owner of the poorly reviewed Cupcakes and Confectionary went toe to toe with John for weeks, even after John’s editor pulled the plug and wouldn’t let him publish any more letters John still privately corresponded with the man for weeks via letter. 

John got the last word, but the baker sent a batch of cupcakes that were laced with something that put him in the hospital. 

It was thirty six years later when John’s editor asked him to review the community college’s new program, night school for adults. Rather then just, you know, ridiculous subjects about whatever John was angry about for the week.

“I already did college, it doesn’t do anything,” John stated, slumping in his chair, sullen and pouting. 

“It’s one night class, who knows, maybe you’ll make a friend,” his editor said, her patience was waning thin at this point. 

“That was a blow.”

“Good, you know, sometimes you forget I’m your boss.”

“No, it’s just sometimes you make me do things I don’t want, and if I don’t stick up for myself who else? Someone’s got to give you a bad time, what with all the sucking up that goes on in this office.”

“Do it.” 

The dark mumbling could be heard by passerbyers, no one cared, he was a recognized enough face. Mother’s would point to his picture and tell their children ‘see, that’s what happens when you frown, your face gets frozen that way.’

His only friend that wasn’t also his co-worker was a small dog that took to following him everywhere, the entire village swore they were identical. The tiny black Scottish terrier took to John like a duck to water, fiercely independent with their own agendas.  
Much like John, The Terror, had his own reputation. Every Tuesday afternoon he’d go and argue with the neighborhood butcher, when John was asked to keep him away, John promptly responded with a ‘listen fellow, if you can’t win an argument with a dog then that’s your problem.” 

More importantly however, the small dog had a crush on a young schoolteacher named Clara. Based off of one interaction where Clara had patted him on the head and told him he was a ‘good boy, aren’t you?’  
Every morning at six am the door appeared at Clara’s apartment door, no clue how he got into the gated community, but then again dogs know more than most people. He would sit politely in front of her door and cry with increasing loudness until she came out and he was invited inside for a saucer of milk. 

“You’re quite the alarm clock aren’t you?” The brunette marveled, packing the last of her bag, she let the small dog drink it’s milk before she opened the door, the small dog walked out the door in front of her, and with the air of a Rottweiler walked her to her work every morning. 

This morning however, Clara was far more interested in her work. The editor had been kind enough to send a journalist to review a program she was in charge of. Night school for adults. It’d been her pet project for the last couple of months, and it had been generally well-received, even by the students. 

Monday night she was ready, of course the journalist would want to come as quick as possible, so he could spend the rest of the week writing about the quality of her classroom and teaching style. She smiled to herself taking a sip of her tea as her students filed in and took their respective seats. 

Monday night John was busy watching reruns of MASH on his couch in nothing but his cheeto stained boxers eating ramen. “I fucking hate this show,” he muttered. 

Tuesday night Clara was far from deterred, certainly everyone was a little unprepared on Monday’s (except for her of course). She waited just as patiently and as cheerfully as before. 

Tuesday night was John’s poker night, and after winning everyone’s money and being banned for cheating (which was true, he had been cheating, it wasn’t his fault he was the only one that knew how to count cards) he went and bought Chinese food from the same restaurant he did every night. 

Wednesday night Clara was at the end of her rope.

Wednesday night John was busy sleeping early. 

Thursday night Clara had a good mind to call the editor. 

Thursday night John talked to his boss and told her ‘yes yes it’s all taken care of.’

Friday night there was no class. 

Friday night John found himself in front of a locked community college. “Who doesn’t have class on Friday night?” he yelled to the cement building, he kicked the cement walls and the cement walls found him rude and gave him no answer. Just a badly bruised toe. 

Saturday John an article about how MASH reruns should be banned from British television ‘the lack of British representation is astounding.’ Sunday morning he listened to a lecture from his editor, it lasted approximately 30 minutes and he held the phone from his ear for the majority of it. Only bringing it close for an ‘Im sorry,’ and ‘mhmm.’

John was the first student to show up in class on Monday night, he sat in the back with his laptop and played solitaire, only looking up when Clara introduced herself as the teacher. 

“You are the teacher?” he looked puzzled, she looked at his computer screen and was already exasperated. “You don’t look out of grade school yet.”

“I assure you, I have my degree,” Clara said. 

“High school degree?” John asked, Clara snorted in annoyance and John almost expected her to stomp her foot. “No wonder you’re not teaching them, they’d mistake you as one of their own.” 

“I hope you enjoy your experience,” Clara said through gritted before turning on her heel. 

“Ooo, someone’s testy,” John muttered looking back down at his screen, he opened a word doc for posterity purposes, but wrote in it ‘too short and too cheery’.

Clara was only about 5’2 and yes she was rather cheery. John watched as her students filed in, there were only about eight tops and Clara had called out about 30 names in roll, which would have been enough to make him throw his chalk out the window and walk out. She didn’t even bat an eyelid. 

John made a mental note to invite her poker some time. 

Even at the asinine question, some of them asked minutes after she addressed them from a different student, the class inched by and John could feel his head hurting by the end of it. When she dismissed her class, and John got up to leave as well he received a puzzled look. 

“Are you not staying for the next class?” John was horrified at the thought of staying. 

“There’s another class?”

“There’s another two.” 

“Christ. Honestly though, I think I have enough material to work with,” Clara looked like she didn’t believe him, John agreed with her, he wouldn’t have believed her either. 

“You should come play poker with me some time,” the small brunette looked puzzled, and John pushed on. “You have a great poker face,” she looked even more confused. “It’ll be great.” He’d said great twice now, and would probably say it more in the future. 

“Ok,” she said with a shrug, “that sounds nice.”

“Great!” there it was again, John hadn’t even noticed but he would be kicking himself at 2am tomorrow when he replayed the conversation. 

“Give me your number,” John listened and scribbled his on the corner of her desk in pencil much to Clara’s horror. “It’ll erase,” he shrugged and strode out of the classroom, leaving Clara to ponder what just happened.  
-  
The paper with John’s newest article ran the next Monday, a raining morning that directly reflected Clara’s mood as she pushed to page 22 in the opinion section. 

Night School for adults is interesting in theory, and mostly a terrible idea in practice. Most of the students still don’t give a shit about actually learning, simply passing the class and getting whatever degree they need to continue to keep afloat is satisfactory for them. They’re giving the bare minmum, they will get the bare minimum.

It’s like that cupcake store on fifth and Churchill. If you keep making shitty cupcakes you’re going to make shite money. This isn’t rocket science friend. 

Night school’s only saving grace is its teacher, a small woman who looks like she just left high school. Oswald works with what little funding she has, and the little interest the students have and tries to make the class magical. She almost succeeds, but falls flat when she allows her students to ask repetitive and ridiculous questions. 

Clara’s nose wrinkled at that. The rest of the article continued to harass anyone who thought they could get the most out of the life with minimum effort, and students who didn’t come to class, ‘are you dying? No? Get your ass in the chair.’

That was when she decided she might text John after all. 

She didn’t realize that John didn’t have a cellphone, instead he had a home phone, cord and all. He’d upgraded about ten years ago and bought a wireless receiver, and it would be another ten years before he even looked at a cellphone. 

The next time she found John was two months later at the natural history museum where she was chaperoning a third grade class. 

“How many fucking jobs do you have?” John asked, looking down at the children with a look that could only be described as fear and disgust. 

“Night school isn’t full time,” Clara said, John was half paying attention, half watching one child pick his nose. 

“Can’t believe I was one of those,” John muttered. 

“They’re ok,” Clara said. “At least most of them have perfect attendance.” John let out laugh, half at the joke, half pleased she brought his joke back to full cycle. “Ah gremlins,” he muttered, rolling on the back of heels. 

“So what happened to poker?” she asked, John winced as the same child who picked his nose touched the metal exhibit plate. 

“You never called me,” John said. She wrinkled her brow. 

“I texted.”

“You kids and your tech, I don’t have a cellphone. I have a home phone.” 

“That’s embarrassing,” Clara said shaking her head in mock sadness, John didn’t bother with a response. 

“So poker?” he asked. 

“I’m free Tuesday night now,” she said, he shook his head. 

“Tuesday night is Chinese food night,” he said, “not poker night, that group banned me , poker night is now-“

“I like Chinese food,” Clara said, she gave a shrug and John nodded. 

“Ok.”

She gave a raised eyebrow. 

“Would you like to join me then?” John asked, wondering if she was dropping hints, Clara mulled it over. 

“Sure, six sound good?” she asked, he nodded. “I’ll meet you in front of the place,” she said. 

“How will you know which it is?” he asked, Clara gave him a look. 

“It’s the only Chinese place within ten miles,” she said, John hadn’t even bothered looking for another restaurant for years and therefore assumed there must be more. 

“So it is,” John said, he looked at the crowd of children with their hands pressed on the glass and winced again. “So, I will leave you and the gremlins to it, I have the mummy exhibit to review, unless school children have already passed through and left the windows blurry. "


End file.
